More Than Just Programming
by kaileytmarie
Summary: Hiro and Aunt Cass are still grieving their loss. Baymax wants to help in any way he can. But the heart cannot be healed with mere medicine. A special movie night seems in order. Oneshot.


_ Orange flames devoured the walls around him, singeing his hair and licking at the exposed flesh on his face, neck and hands. His breathing became heavy and labored as the black smoke filled his lungs. _

_ "Tadashi?" he whispered. "Tadashi?" _

_ He began to cry out his brother's name as loud as he could, desperate to find him and save him from the fire!_

_ "Tadashi!" He choked on the smoke, clutching his chest and dropped to his knees. Pain raked over his body as he felt the flesh melting from his bones. _

_ He touched his face. It felt like jello. _

_ "Tadashi! Tadashi, please answer me!"_

_ He wanted to cry, but the immense heat had sucked the water from his body. His head spun, his vision faded._

_ "Please," he whimpered. "Please."_

_ "Hiro?"_

* * *

><p>"Hiro?"<p>

Hiro opened his eyes, aware that his face and pillow were wet from tears. He looked across the room to check his brother's stuff. It was still just as he had left it the day he died.

"Sweetie?"

Hiro looked back at the voice that had pulled him from his nightmare.

"You were yelling."

"Sorry, Aunt Cass. I just…" he frowned, lifting a hand to touch his face. His skin was still smooth and in tact. "I was having a bad dream."

"About the fire?" His Aunt's eyes shared his grief.

Hiro nodded.

Cass sat on the edge of his bed and pulled her nephew into a tight hug.

Hiro could feel the slight tremble in her hands and she began to cry quietly. He knew she missed Tadashi, too. She had treated them as if they were hers since their parents had died. Sure, she acted like she was doing okay when she was working, but Hiro knew that his brother's death had wreaked havoc on her almost as much as it had him.

Aunt Cass was broken, Hiro realized. She had tried so hard to be strong for him that she had never truly gotten the chance to grieve. So he let her cry on him.

He listened as her whimpering grew to choking sobs and didn't pull away when she squeezed him tighter and tighter. It was like she thought if she could just hold him close enough, she'd never ever lose him.

Hiro wrapped his arms around her, feeling fresh tears falling from his own face, not for himself or his brother, but for his Aunt.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Cass."

The woman pulled away, searching his eyes in confusion. "For what?" she asked, wiping her eyes.

Hiro shrugged. "For not being there for you when you've always been there for me."

Her eyes grew wide and her mouth opened in shock. "Hiro, is that what you think? No, no, sweetie, you've never not been there for me! The fact that you're here right now is proof of that." She ran a hand through his hair and leaned forward to kiss his forehead. "You are the best thing that ever happened to me, kiddo."

Hiro gave her a small smile.

Cass looked at the clock beside his bed. "Well, it's only four in the morning. How about some ice cream?"

Hiro nodded. "That sounds good. I'll be down in a minute."

Cass ruffled his hair and turned to leave.

"Aunt Cass?"

She paused at the door.

"I love you."

"Love you too, Hiro."

Hiro sat in the darkness. Alone. He glanced back over to Tadashi's bed and sighed.

"Ow."

He watched as Baymax activated and inflated by the door. He stepped out of his charging dock and did his weird, little wave.

"Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. It is 4:23am, Hiro. You should be asleep." He lifted his hand, pointing one finger to the ceiling. It was a gesture he made when he was about to make a point or spout out some random facts. "At this point in your life, you should have an average of eight and one half hours of sleep each night. This gives your body the required time to go through the stages of muscular regeneration, memory consolidation and hormonal regulation for controlling growth and appetite. Interrupting your sleep cycle can be detrimental to you physical health and emotional stability."

Hiro stared at him.

Baymax tilted his head. "Your emotional stability has already been compromised. You are deficient in both serotonin and norepinephrine."

Hiro lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. "It hurts, Baymax," he whispered.

Baymax opened his pain chart on his chest. "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your-"

"When will it stop hurting?"

The robot stared at him blankly, silently.

Hiro liked to think he was deep in thought and not just calling up different codes and procedures.

"I am a robot, Hiro," he stated. "I do not feel as you do and I am bound by my programming. Tadashi made me to heal the sick and care for the injured. He wanted me to make pain go away."

Hiro rolled to his side to look at his friend.

"Unfortunately, I cannot make death go away and I am unable to heal one's emotional state with standard medical practices."

"So you can't help me."

"I did not say that."

Hiro blinked. "So… You can help me?"

Baymax turned and faced the door. "Your Aunt is suffering from similar emotional distress. Shall I offer my care to her as well?"

"Um… Yeah, buddy. I guess so. I was going to head down for some ice cream anyway."

Baymax looked back at him. "Stress eating may cause excessive weight gain and at this time of night your body is unable to burn through fat and sugar as it would in the day."

Hiro rolled his eyes, laughing to himself. "Just don't tell Aunt Cass that."

"Agreed. It would be detrimental to even my health."

Hiro rolled out of bed and walked to the door, poking Baymax's side as he passed. "Did you just make a joke?" They walked out the door and down the stairs to the kitchen.

"Humor can often trigger a chemical release of dopamine to stimulate the pleasure sensors of the brain. Has my quip provided effective stimuli?"

"Oh, hey there, Baymax," Cass greeted with a smile, interrupting the conversation. "Did you want a bowl of ice cream too?"

Baymax blinked. "I am a robot. I do not require human victuals in order to sustain functionality."

Cass smiled awkwardly. "Heh. I… It was a joke Baymax."

* * *

><p>Hiro and Cass ate their ice cream in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. They would occasionally make eye contact and offer each other a small smile, but their moods had grown somber and not even their sugar filled snacks seemed capable of lifting their spirits.<p>

Baymax watched quietly from the corner of the room. He had busied himself with preparing a treatment for his patients at first, but now he was content to observe and learn. Tadashi had programmed him to do many things, but there were still aspects of human emotions that he could not fully comprehend. Grief, for instance, though initially perceived as a negative emotion, proved to actually play a key role in the stability of one's mind. Humans needed to grieve.

But grief, if left unattended, could rapidly consume a person's every thought, thereby reeking havoc on both the emotional and physical level. Depression could deter a human from eating, sleeping, seeking companionship or performing even the most menial labors such as walking down the stairs or answering the telephone. Yet humans needed to grieve.

The ordeal puzzled Baymax. When should he consider his patient's grief a good thing, encouraging him to work through his emotions and find the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel? At what point did it become hazardous to his patient's overall health?

It seemed that grieving did not have set boundaries, but differentiated between each of its hosts.

Baymax was confused, but programming was programming. He had to help. He had to heal. He had to care.

He waddled up to the table his patients were sitting at. "I discovered some recordings while I was straightening the bookcase a few days ago. I believe they will be useful to you during your grieving process. I have converted them from film to digital copies and have placed them in the DVD player for you. Would you like to move into the living room?"

"Sure, buddy," Hiro answered, shoveling another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.

Cass picked up her bowl and headed into the next room. "I can't wait to see what you found, Baymax. An old movie? Oh! Is it The Creature of the Black Lagoon? I haven't seen that in a while."

Hiro smiled. "Isn't that the weird show with the fish guy who can barely walk fast enough to even keep up with the girl, but no matter how fast she runs he's always right behind her?"

They sat in front of the TV and Hiro pressed the play button on the remote. He looked over his shoulder to see Baymax still standing by the table. "You want to sit with us, big guy?"

Baymax waddled over to the small sofa and waited for Hiro to climb up on its arm as he usually did. After taking his seat, Baymax heated himself so as to provide a more comforting seat for his patient.

Hiro climbed onto his friend's squishy, warm stomach and settled into a lounging position.

Cass leaned into the warm robot beside her, briefly wondering how they had ever managed to enjoy a movie night without him.

The television screen was soon filled with a grainy image of a young boy's smiling face. He giggled as he begged to see himself on the camera screen. "Lemme see, Aunt Cass. I wanna see me."

"Okay, okay. Hang on, Tadashi." The camcorder shook as little Tadashi's eyes filled the entire screen.

"Can I hold it, Aunt Cass? I wanna record him! Please?"

"Sure, kiddo. Just be careful not to drop it."

Tadashi reached for the camera and suddenly disappeared from its view. He filmed his feet as he walked across a brown, carpeted floor and jostled the camera a bit as he tried to set it on what appeared to be a windowsill.

The lens came into focus and settled on a man opening the door of a cab and helping a young woman out of the back seat. The man then reached into the car and pulled something out.

"There he is!" Tadashi shouted in a shrill voice. He turned the devise around to focus on his beaming face. "That's my baby brother! He's coming home from the hospital! Here, Aunt Cass. I don't want this anymore." Tadashi apparently shoved the camcorder back at Cass and bounded for the front door, giggling and squealing in excitement.

The scene suddenly changed to a baby sleeping in his mother's arms. Tadashi's big head came into view. He smiled warmly at the baby. "That's my brother, Hiro," he whispered. "We're gonna keep him, right mom?"

The woman laughed. "Yes, Tadashi. We're keeping him."

"Forever?"

"Forever and ever."

Tadashi's eyes lit up. "And I'm gonna take care of him too, right?"

"You're going to be mommy's special helper," Cass said from behind the camera.

Tadashi gingerly touched Hiro's face. "We're gonna be best friend's, baby Hiro. I'm gonna take care of you and play with you and keep you safe."

The baby reached out his hand and closed his fingers around his brother's.

Tadashi giggled.

* * *

><p>Baymax monitored his patients carefully as they watched the home movies. At times they laughed and at times they cried. Sometimes the treatment worked and other times it seemed to make things worse, but only for a moment.<p>

Humans were complex, sometimes illogical, inconsistent and random in behavior. They were fascinating and far beyond what he could understand. He was content to observe them. They taught him how to better do his job. If he had emotions, he might just find them enjoyable.

Did he have emotions?

No. He merely acted and reacted based on his programming. He was programmed to be kind and hospitable. To converse in order to better understand the situation and find the proper cure through process of elimination.

Hiro's ice cream bowl was empty.

Baymax turned to the female beside him. She had finished her ice cream as well.

He checked his internal clock. It was now 5:57am. He considered encouraging Hiro to go back to sleep.

"Dashi!"

Baymax turned his attention to the image on the screen. A young Hiro toddled into view wearing a bowl on his head.

"Dashi, wook! Hat!"

"That's not a hat, Hiro," Tadashi said, setting the camera on the floor and running to his brother. All that was visible where the kids' legs and feet, but it was clear that the older of the two boys was tickling the younger.

"Dashi, pway!"

"I have to get ready for school, Hiro." Tadashi walked back to the camera and lifted it off the ground. He flashed a toothy smile into the lens and turned it around to look at an upset two-year-old.

"Pway, Dashi. Pway."

"We'll play as soon as I get home, okay?"

Hiro tried to frown, but couldn't help laughing when his brother reached over to tickle his tummy.

"I'll show you how to work my remote control robot when I get back. See you later, little brother!"

* * *

><p>Baymax wrapped his arms around the fourteen-year-old on his lap, shifting him to sit next to his Aunt on the couch as he took their bowls and waddled back to the kitchen.<p>

He filled each of the bowls with more ice cream and returned to the living room to serve his patients their deserts.

Cass took hers without question, eyes locked on the television, grinning from ear to ear as she watcher her nephews growing up before her eyes all over again.

Hiro smirked at his friend. "I thought you said eating this late was a bad thing, Baymax." He accepted the bowl and began shoveling the creamy goodness into his mouth.

Baymax considered the statement. It was true, his actions were very much against his programming. But maybe they weren't. He was programmed to help, to heal and to care. Although serving foods with such high fat and sugar content was unsound medical care, he could not argue that it was doing wonders for his patients' emotional health.

Hiro climbed onto the sofa's arm, eyes still locked on the screen. Baymax took the cue and settled back into his place. Hiro leaned against him.

Baymax looked at him. "Hiro?"

"Yeah?" The boy could not seem to tear his eyes off of the TV.

"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?"

Hiro looked back at him and smiled. "Zero. You always know just what to do."

"I can deactivate if you say you are satisfied with your care."

"Do you want to deactivate?"

Baymax considered the question.

"No."

"Well, then, no. I'm not satisfied with my care." Hiro smiled again and continued watching the video.

Baymax also turned his eyes to the television, though he did not pay much attention to what was going on. He had already downloaded the content into his memory banks in the event that Hiro wished to see his brother interacting with his younger self again.

* * *

><p>Baymax had been programmed to always help his patient and so far, Hiro had been his only true patient. Hiro knew that he would always take care of him for that reason.<p>

But what if that wasn't the only reason? What if Baymax didn't care for him simply because he had to, but because a part of him wanted to?

Hiro knew it was crazy. Anyone who didn't really know Baymax would argue that Hiro's emotions were clouding his judgment, making him humanize a pre-programmed AI chip. Even his friends, though often acting like the robot was somehow alive, couldn't get around the fact that his mind was no more than a heavily coded microprocessor.

Hiro didn't really care, though. He knew Baymax was a machine, but he liked to think of the giant marshmallow man as his friend more so than just another invention. He believed Baymax watched, learned, listened and helped because, somehow, he wanted to.

He wanted to help. He wanted to heal. He wanted to care.

Hiro watched him out of the corner of his eye. How had he known a home movie night would cheer them up? That wasn't a medical thing, was it?

What if he was more than just programming?


End file.
